


A Stone Provoking Rings in Water

by orphan_account



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: BAMF lady Chuck, Gen, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 22:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/931860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You already have your hero, he tells Pentecost, but goes to see for himself anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Stone Provoking Rings in Water

**Author's Note:**

> Kink meme fill: If Chuck was a girl, how would that affect her? Like piloting, drifting with her dad, interpersonal relationships?

After Port Moresby, Raleigh hears her name on the news every other day. He sees her half a dozen times on the small TV they set up in the canteen. Young, poised. Cocky. The charming, press-friendly half to her father’s reserved manner. 

Charlie Hansen, Charlie Hansen, they chant up and down the Wall, like an old soldiers’ song. Except they are not soldiers, but men hiding behind their makeshift defences while the girl back home is holding the guns. 

Raleigh, for his part, has heard everything: gratitude, contempt, hero-worship, a long record of opinions concerning a woman’s place in the world. He’s learned that some of his colleagues will never tire of laughing at their own jokes. She can pilot _my_ jaeger any day, if you know what I mean. 

She stands among cameras and microphones, and asks the world to consider supporting the Jaeger Programme in these difficult times. She says the Wall should be regarded as a temporary measure – and no one there minds, because no one really thinks otherwise. The Wall is there to feed them and give them something to do. It’s only when Mutavore comes, when the reality of their helplessness sinks in, that they begin to mutter, they begin to panic and scatter. No one sees her on the small TV set anymore, battered but alive and half-smiling, announcing Striker Eureka’s record kill count. 

Charlie Hansen, Charlie Hansen, Raleigh thinks. Who holds back monsters when we can’t. 

*

You already have your hero, he tells Pentecost, but goes to see for himself anyway.

In person she is different. In person she is _angry_. At the DC, for her beloved Striker. At her father, for some old hurt, buried in the grim line of her mouth. At Raleigh, for his stupid fucking Wall and his slip-ups. 

‘I quite like my life,’ she spits at him, and swings her fist once, before Mako steps between them, perfectly composed, to stop the fight and Herc Hansen comes to lead his daughter away. Later in his quarters, nursing his broken nose, Raleigh hears them arguing down the hall. She says: I’m not about to compromise this mission for the sake of one has-been who can’t even make it past the simulator. 

Raleigh, listening, smiles to himself, slow and sad. Charlie Hansen, Charlie Hansen will save the world if we let her. It’s her you need. Not me.


End file.
